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Raktra Akarro
|rank_and_unit = |allegiance = }}Raktra Akarro was the Primarch of the bellicose and savage VIIth Legion - the Berserkers of Uran. Known as 'The White Devil', 'Skyhunter' and the 'Ashen King', he remade his Legion as an instrument of absolute brute force, his worldview one of unremitting bleakness and merciless domination. Rising to power on a world where only the writ of the strong was heeded, Raktra had been the apex predator, slayer of monsters. He ruled his Legion as he had Uran, excising any trace of compassion from his warriors. Having bowed only to his father's power, Raktra chafed at the restraints placed upon him and embraced Icarion's offer to upend the existing order. With the coming of the Icarion Insurrection he would prove one of the Traitors' most vehement and destructive warlords. History The Gift of the Pit The prisons of the Imperium are, as with so much else, numerous enough to defeat any attempt at counting them. Some were torn down and their inhabitants freed by the Emperor’s soldiers, while others were filled anew with the enemies of the Imperium. Many became great warehouses of manpower, whose inmates would be taken away to serve sentences on mining worlds or in penal regiments while the worst were processed into servitors. A few were known widely for their sturdiness, the nature of the criminals they held and the brutality with which these were kept in check. Yet it is unlikely that any were the equal of Uran. Serving a small empire in a less enlightened backwater of the Galaxy, Uran was once a world where the condemned were placed to find some utility, criss-crossing the planet’s crust with excavations much as Cthonia was, albeit not so far along the same trajectory. Foundries were raised and mighty forge-satellites constructed in orbit; the prisoners on the surface were to be kept far away from the weapons their labour created. Simply running the planet demanded colossal supplies of manpower, and six hive cities grew up, populated by the soldiers and civil officers who governed the world and those prisoners deemed suitable to serve their needs. The rest inhabited seven great catacomb-cities, built around clusters of mines, agri-chambers and other places where they might be made useful. As the Age of Strife reached its crescendo, however, creatures of a strange and macabre nature appeared. Resembling a twisted mockery of mythical angels, they tormented the populace in growing swarms. The skies became perilous, forcing the rulers of the world to heavily arm the conveyors which ferried Uran's wares offworld. The empire, rife with internecine disputes, would brook no loss of productivity, and finally the foundries were moved into the catacomb cities, accompanied by an increasingly heavy military presence to deter any attempts to take the weapons. This was not always successful, and savage battles were fought in the dark, often ended with culls. The overseers of Uran became an ugly mirror to the prisoners they managed, cruel and yet wracked with fear of the Angels who claimed their skies. Gangs emerged from the inmates, often grouped together according to their “profession”. Where once some efforts had been made to ensure that the prisoners served only the years of their sentence, now to be cast into the warrens was a sentence imposed on the descendants of the condemned. Arboreta and agri-chambers were replaced with reclamation plants, which took the place of burial or cremation. Gangs became clans, warring with each other for dominance beyond the sight of the hive armies. They grew bolder and stronger as they wrested weapons from unwary guards. In other cases, guards “went feral” and these too fed the ranks of the gangers. Finally first in one prison and then the others, armouries were breached and ransacked. The gaolers retrieved what they could from the prisons, but within a few months of the first breach they had been driven out or killed, and the hives were forced to fend off the Angels with their own toil and blood. The catacombs knew little of the Angels beyond the few that penetrated the tunnels and wreaked bloody violence until they were glutted or killed, for the surface-dwellers had taken care to destroy the conveyors which had been the only point of access into the prisons. Archeotech devices lurked in the very soil, waiting to kill anyone foolish enough to try and dig for the surface. Besides, the gangers were more interested in dominance within their subterranean world. Into this cauldron of violence came a Primarch, his incubation pod tearing through the earth to rest within the largest of the prison complexes. Wandering the tunnels, he was found after an unknown length of time by one of the most powerful gangs, known as the Architects. From them he learned what it was to lead, and the myriad methods of killing practiced in the tunnels. They also gave him the name which would echo through the Galaxy in years to come - Raktra Akarro. Soon, he was the strongest man ever known to roam the tunnels, strong enough to slay any opponent he faced and gifted with the ability to find weakness wherever it might exist. His kills were not just men and women, but feral animals and the Angels which occasionally made their way into the depths. With Raktra fighting amongst them, the Architects grew strong, breaking the gangs with whom they vied for territory. Often a clan would pledge allegiance when Raktra slew their leaders. It was a custom among all the gangs to burn one’s slain foes and wear their ashes. Even before he was fully grown, Raktra’s skin was stained a dirty white by the remains of his vanquished enemies. Soon, the entire complex lay under his control, Raktra having attained absolute control of his gang and the rest through fear, his natural authority and sheer violence. He had grown up hearing of other warrens and the hive-dwellers who set themselves up - in the tales of the gangers, at least - as the rulers of the world, casting others into the pit to achieve that end. Whether he saw a grievance to be redressed is debatable. Certainly he took exception to anyone but himself dominating Uran, and resolved to expand his power further. He set the population to tunnelling, forcing a unified effort to reach the other warrens as no tyrant before him had. When another complex was reached he would lead his followers into it. The gangs they found were as divided as those Raktra had first known, and they fell easily. Over three decades Raktra expanded and defended his power, fanning the fires of industry even as he fended off challengers. Whispers, brought back by the garrisons watching the pits, began to circulate in the hives. They told of a white devil that lurked in the bowels of the world. Few believed them at first, but Raktra had long since resolved to show the surface-dwellers the truth of those words. He mounted raids to the surface, seeking engineers to perfect the tunneling machinery the gangs used, and avenues of attack which he might exploit to invade the cities. Crude power armour was created in the forges, accompanied by weapons often adapted from mining tools. Thus Raktra equipped himself and his followers, and they struck the first city. The war that followed raged for six years, Raktra subjugating each city in turn and finding new weapons for his use. He became a figure of terror, but on a world long resigned to fear, that only added to his grim authority. Uran’s people had long ago shed any illusions about siding with the strong, and Raktra demonstrated his potency in ways that left no room for doubt. Oppression and violence were ubiquitous and dissent met with a hammer, fist, blade or bullet. Yet Raktra was unsatisfied, for still he was not entirely the world’s master. The angels still tormented the people, forcing Raktra's own warriors to shy away from open spaces. He resolved to destroy them much as he had all other opposition, and led ten thousand warriors out into the wastes in a brazen challenge. For three days they journeyed, marching with grim purpose. Nearing the mountains where the creatures gathered, they were set upon, and for all the Architects' brutality and Raktra's might, the Angels fought in ways that few could withstand. With talons, beaks and gouts of unnatural flame, they ravaged the White Devil’s horde for hours. With his army teetering on the verge of annihilation, Raktra was forced to withdraw. He himself was severely wounded, his jaw so badly mangled that even with his physiology, it would not heal cleanly. The White Devil knew defeat, and this sent shockwaves through Uran. Raktra was denounced as a false prophet by men eager to exploit the situation. Conflict blossomed, the old gangs emerging along with new factions as the Architects' empire splintered. Blood ran through every city, every district, every street. But Raktra was not so easily thrown aside, and over two decades he purged Uran of all the recalcitrants. When he broke the final warlord who stood against him, he revealed that he had let matters escalate so. Conflict bred strength, and he would expunge such weakness as had cost him the battle in the mountains. In his eyes, the war was nothing more than two generations of accelerated natural selection. From the remainder he would build his army, letting the gangs war for his notice. Those who excelled in the struggle were rewarded with forges, archeotech and other weapons to use against their brethren. Finally Raktra gave the word, and the fighting ceased. Forges were turned towards the purpose of the Ashen King, and his arsenal augmented with archeotech found in the furthest-reaching tunnels. Nearly twenty-five Terran years after the disaster in the mountains, Raktra set out with a far larger army at his back, and a cadre of warriors dedicated to his protection. With a colossal length of chain he swatted Angels from the sky, and in his right hand he bore a massive chainblade. This time, no Angel could resist him, and though his dead outnumbered the entire army he had brought before, they were relentless. Over four days and three nights, they scoured the mountains, using aircraft taken from the hives to attack the Angels when they flew out of reach. Eventually, all that remained was feathers and ichor, and Raktra ordered the entire range to be bathed in fire. Finally, the Angels who had blighted Uran were purged. Ashen and Bloody When the Emperor found Raktra it was as a grim deliverer, an apex predator who only now recognised a being whose strength he could no match. For the first time, Raktra beheld an individual in whom he could discern no weakness, and whose power utterly eclipsed his own. Perhaps more pertinently, he learned that there was a way to elevate his forces far beyond their present might, and heights of power that before had been out of reach. Yet when he was told of the “sons” who already fought in the Emperor’s Crusade, he felt only disgust. They represented everything Uran had taught him to despise: the protection of the weak, mercy as a virtue that overrode the urge to a crushing victory. This would not stand. Raktra, disdaining the Legion depicted in the campaign logs, resolved to delay taking charge of them. For a time he fought beside the Emperor and then Yucahu, and precious little was known of him; a warrior in black and ashen white, possessed of astonishing speed and ferocity. The exact identity of this figure was obscured, and the Shepherds of Eden remained ignorant that their gene-sire had been found. Meanwhile, in facilities built in Uran's orbit, a cadre of Astartes were being formed into the first of what was arguably an entirely new Legion: the Berserkers of Uran. When Raktra finally revealed himself to his sons, he did so with ten thousand Legionaries drawn from Uran and other worlds whose sons he deemed suitable. Finding the Dusk Blades Chapter of the Shepherds besieging the world of Kerunnos, he ordered an immediate bombardment of the capital city followed by a drop-pod assault. The Shepherds were taught, as bluntly as possible, that Raktra cared naught for their methods or creed. The VIIth Legion changed vastly in appearance, bone-white replaced by charred black and ashen white on their arms. This highlighted the gore of battle, and soon the VIIth were nicknamed the Bloody Handed. Many younger Shepherds caved in to the impulse to emulate their father, and those who did not, found their numbers dwindling, their Chapters and companies consolidated into ever fewer formations. Raktra retained the old tithe rights to Cthonia's stock, and the old runes and glyphs took on a more savage appearance, closer to how they were inscribed by the gangs of that world. Tithes were imposed on other prison-worlds, but none were allowed to rival the primacy of Uran. Several times, Raktra demanded fresh influxes of stock from newly conquered worlds or existing prison colonies. In the sectors around Uran, the death penalty for rioting or inveterate disobedience was replaced with transportation to the Ashen Kingdom, as it became known. Fresh blood was rapidly subsumed into the population, and the weak eradicated. No gang or clan, transplanted from elsewhere, retained its own identity for long. Uran's influence could be seen in the very bodies of the Legionaries it produced. Scarification was commonplace, and at the end of every battle the Berserkers made pyres of their fallen foes, wearing the ash in imitation of their master. One of the most visible changes was the absence of true jump infantry in their ranks, a product of Raktra's formative years. Despising the idea of his warriors resembling the "angels" he had cast down, he forbade the use of jump packs. To combat this deficiency, thruster pods were designed by the Magos under his command, less powerful but cheaper and easier to manufacture. The devices became widespread among the Berserkers, allowing them to move in large numbers at a speed which beggared belief. The new VIIth rose rapidly, and with this strength came a reputation for atrocity that went beyond any of their fellow Legions. On Punicia, Raktra razed a continental capital in defiance of Pionus' strategy for conquest, and the Berserkers nearly came to blows with the Scions Hospitalier in the ruins. Around this time Raktra and Niklaas had indeed fought, although little is known about the incident. In other theatres, Imperial Army regiments swiftly learned that the Legion cared nothing for any allied mortals caught in the path of their offensives. The very concept of collateral damage seemed foreign to Raktra; worse, it emerged that he actively despised the notion. The Somoptis became known as the Cutter's Sight among the Berserkers, and it seems to have become bound up with their hatred of weakness. Infirmity was laid bare to them, and it was their task to excise it. In a matter of years, an approaching VIIth Legion fleet had become cause for panic among their own allies. Indeed, during the Inwit campaign a mere decade later, something unprecedented occurred. The rift within the VIIth became a fissure, a full 20,000 of the old Shepherds breaking away. Giving the Primarch's conduct as their reason, the trigger-point seems to have been a dispute between Raktra and one Captain Khârn, though the exact cause went unspoken of. To Raktra's fury, his errant sons petitioned the Halcyon Wardens and Iron Bears for support, and got it. The Scions Hospitalier and Crimson Lions too closed ranks in defence of the Shepherds of Eden, who were granted autonomy from their Primarch. Such a thing had never been heard of, and Raktra could only console himself that any compassion was gone from the forces under his command. The Berserkers would ram this message home in the subsequent years, and thus the image was cemented of a Legion teetering on the brink of censure. Yet they had undeniable utility to the Great Crusade. The Imperial advance was barred by a thousand alien and mutant empires which only warranted eradication, and the Berserkers excelled in this. Never were they needed more than when the Rangdan incursions swept the Imperium's northern frontier. Hundreds of worlds burned, with entire Titan Legions, Imperial Army regiments and Legiones Astartes REDACTED wiped out, yet the Berserkers emerged all the stronger. Raktra and his "true sons" gloried in the carnage, and what they saw as the truth of the Galaxy. They took the remnants of broken formations, those who now found nothing to comfort them when faced with the savagery of the Galaxy, and made fanatical allies of them. Most notorious of these were the Knights of House Lorthryk who, plucked from the brink of extinction during the Rangdan Xenocides, became pitiless and fanatical killers in the Ashen King's service. By this time, the Berserkers' bleak worldview had become entrenched throughout the Legion, and spread to their auxiliaries. They did not want for Mechanicum allies - indeed the Legio Yharma was essentially raised for them - but their unremitting viciousness and unforgiving treatment of mortals ensured that precious few Imperial Army commanders would serve beside them unless by order. Allied Taghmata could only compensate so much for sheer numbers, and so penal regiments and companies which had disgraced themselves were assigned to the Berserkers' fleets. Where necessary, death worlders and underhive gangers were used to reinforce their numbers. The death toll was staggering, but those who survived were forged into some of the most deadly mortal troops in the Imperium. However, the Berserkers had few friends, and several of Raktra's brothers remained outright hostile to him. While they had worked discreetly to steer the Berserkers away from human worlds, once Alexandros became Warmaster this became much more overt. Raktra met this with the same disgust he showed for his brother's elevation, seething that the Emperor had handed power to a weakling Primarch. Worse was to come, as the Vizenko Prosecution convinced Raktra that the cancer of weakness had infested the Imperium utterly, and the Chaplain Order was extended to the VIIth Legion for the first time since the Shepherds had broken away. With this development it might be suggested that Raktra was waiting for an opportunity to rebel. When Icarion made his offer it was quickly accepted, but once the leash was slipped, the Berserkers would become the most volatile force at his command. Personality Raktra approached all things with a mindset which held ruthlessness and strength sacrosanct. While many in the Imperium abhorred his cruelty and savage ideology, his prowess was undeniable, and among those who did choose to follow him, he received fanatical loyalty. On hundreds of worlds Raktra plied his bloody trade, his gift of the "Cutter's Sight" laying bare the weaknesses of his foes. Wargear *''The Stygian Cuirass'' - Raktra's armour drew little from standard patterns; instead his artificers rendered the brute functionality of Uran in adamantium and ceramite. Its systems were continually overhauled due to the damage inflicted through exposure to rad-weaponry, the Primarch’s physiology proving more resilient than his own wargear against such baleful energies. Against physical threats, however, its strength was undeniable. *''Shatter'' - A monstrously unsubtle weapon, Shatter is best classified as a hand-cannon. Lacking the elegance inherent to many Primarchs' firearms, was instead steeped in the raw, primal violence of a culture that never bothered to conceal it. *''The Grinder'' - Of the many fearsome weapons wielded by the Ashen King, this monstrous chainblade was the most infamous and lethal. Capable of rending stone, most of its victims were reduced to offal, robbed of any shape by the shrieking teeth. *''Heartworm'' *'Frag Grenades' *'Impact Thrusters' Gallery File:Hectarion_Gwalchavad_Raktra_by_AituarManas.png|The now-Daemon Primarch Raktra, fighting against his former brother Primarchs Hectarion Mycenor and Gwalchavad at the Eternity Gate during the Battle of Terra. Category:A